Plan around your own opening hours, test a few related stations and check gaps and exceptions. Saved schedules follow your venue’s timezone; playback needs an open browser on an awake, connected device.
Hear three starting points for your day
Map your real working day
List when you open, when the space gets busy and when it becomes quieter. Those times will differ between a neighbourhood café, a gym and a hotel. Use your own routine instead of treating a sample schedule as a rule.
- Opening: the first impression and the team's setup routine.
- Busy period: the energy needed while the space is active.
- Quieter period: a comfortable change of pace.
- Closing: the last part of the customer experience, if music remains appropriate.
Give each part a musical direction
Write an atmosphere beside each time block before choosing a station. You might want warm and welcoming at breakfast, steady and unobtrusive at lunch, and more relaxed later. A different business may need sustained energy across most of the day.
Compare genre, energy and vocal character together. First light offers a warm acoustic direction; Golden hour brings instrumental soul; After the rush is relaxed jazz. These are starting points to audition, not rules for every business.
For a hotel, list breakfast service, reception and treatment rooms separately. Current plans include one simultaneous stream. Scheduling different selections through the day does not create independent music in several rooms at once.
An example: a café open from 08:00 to 18:00
For a café open from 08:00 to 18:00, start with three blocks. Use the times below as an editable example, then change them to match your opening hours and actual service. No particular genre or tempo guarantees a business result.
Hear the station samples before choosing. Under your plan’s terms, try the full selections in the venue during quiet and busy periods, listening from tables and the counter. If lunch and the afternoon feel much the same, keep one longer block rather than adding a change that serves no purpose.
- 08:00–11:00 · Warm opening: try First light’s acoustic sound as the first customers arrive.
- 11:00–15:00 · Steady lunch: compare Golden hour’s instrumental soul while keeping orders and conversation clear.
- 15:00–18:00 · Easier afternoon: try After the rush’s relaxed jazz as the pace settles.
- Outside those hours · Choose whether the venue should be silent or use gap music; do not leave the choice accidental.
Check the change between selections
Listen across each handover in the actual room. Account scheduling checks for changes every 15 seconds; a new slot replaces the current track. Choose related sounds if a jump in energy feels distracting. Scheduling does not adjust your speaker volume for you.
A station is intended for continuous shuffled listening. A collection plays in order and finishes after its last track, so a short collection may not fill a long slot. Check both the music’s character and the selection’s length before relying on the plan.
Agree who will handle a temporary music change and when to follow the saved schedule again. A private event or different opening hours may need a special-date plan rather than an edit to the normal week.
Make a draft you can revisit
Open the public day planner, choose a business starting point, then edit the times and station selections. Blocks can touch but cannot overlap. Split an overnight draft at midnight to keep this one-day sketch unambiguous.
Choose Save draft to keep the plan in this browser on this device. Restore draft retrieves that version. This public tool does not upload a schedule, synchronize devices or start playback. Use it to decide what you want before applying the plan in your account.
- Try the plan during a normal day before standardizing it.
- Ask staff which periods worked and where they changed the music.
- Keep a note of the date and setting of the trial so later feedback has context.
Turn the draft into a weekly venue schedule
Create your account, add your business and venue country, and check the available plan. In the account workspace, open Schedule and choose the stations or collections for each day. Check the venue timezone: the plan follows the venue’s local clock rather than the timezone of a laptop used while travelling.
Save the weekly schedule, then choose Follow saved schedule when you are ready to play. Keep the workspace open and the device awake and connected. A saved schedule alone does not start music on a closed laptop or after the browser exits.
In the account schedule, an end time before the start continues into the next day. Check the following day for overlaps. Special dates replace the normal weekly day; gaps on those dates are silent. On ordinary days, gap music can fill unscheduled time. If you want silence outside opening hours, leave gap music unset.
If scheduled playback reports a connection problem, it stops. Your saved plan is retained. Restore the connection and use Resume saved schedule to check what is due now before continuing.
- Verify the timezone, weekdays and opening/closing times before saving.
- Test an actual handover and a gap during a normal working period.
- Check special dates and overnight slots before the relevant day.
- Keep the listening device, browser and speaker setup ready for the shift.
Put it into practice.
Plan your day
Sketch music changes across your business day, check for overlapping times and save a draft on this device. Use your account schedule for venue playback.
Cafés
Original café music for mornings, lunch and relaxed afternoons. Hear samples, plan daily changes and choose a subscription with business licensing.
Hotels
Original hotel background music for breakfast, reception and the lounge. Explore stations, scheduling and the venue scope of your local subscription.
Simple licensing
Original music and a direct business-use licence in one subscription. See what royalty-free means, which uses are covered and how your local offer works.
Help & contact
Get help with your Open Hours account, subscription, playback and licence record, find out how to delete your account, or send us a message.
Choose background music for your business
Choose background music that suits your business, with a practical checklist for sound, licensing, total cost and everyday use.
Plan music for special dates
Use a special-date override for different music or a closure in Open Hours. Understand venue timezones, whole-day rules, drafts, overnight carry and saved playback.
Stations or ordered collections
Understand continuous station playback and finite ordered collections in Open Hours. Choose the right option for a long shift, a selected track or a scheduled slot.
Set music around conversation
Set business background music around normal conversation. Check customer seats, service points and speaker positions, then revisit the level during a quiet and busy period.